Gaming terminals, such as slot machines, video poker machines, and the like, have been a cornerstone of the gaming industry for several years. Generally, the popularity of such machines with players is dependent on the likelihood (or perceived likelihood) of winning money at the machine and the intrinsic entertainment value of the machine relative to other available gaming options.
Where the available gaming options include a number of competing machines and the expectation of winning each machine is roughly the same (or believed to be the same), players are most likely to be attracted to the most entertaining and exciting of the machines. Shrewd operators consequently strive to employ the most entertaining and exciting machines available because such machines attract frequent play and hence increase profitability to the operator. Accordingly, in the competitive gaming machine industry, there is a continuing need for gaming machine manufacturers to produce new types of games, or enhancements to existing games, which will attract frequent play by enhancing the entertainment value and excitement associated with the game.
In order to attract players and achieve player loyalty to different games, game designers seek to make games interesting to the player. There are therefore continual challenges to develop different attractive features to a player in wagering games.
One concept that has been successfully employed to enhance the entertainment value of a game is that of a “secondary” or “bonus” game which may be played in conjunction with a “basic” game. The bonus game may comprise any type of game, either similar to or completely different from the basic game, and is entered upon the occurrence of a selected event or outcome of the basic game. Such a bonus game produces a significantly higher level of player excitement than the basic game because it provides a greater expectation of winning than the basic game.
Another concept that has been employed is the use of a progressive game having one or more progressive jackpots. In the gaming industry, a “progressive” game involves collecting coin-in data (i.e., wager inputs) from participating gaming device(s) (e.g., slot machines), contributing a percentage of that coin-in data to the jackpot amount(s) for the one or more progressive jackpots, and awarding one or more of the progressive jackpot(s) to a player upon the occurrence of certain jackpot-triggering events. A jackpot-triggering event may occur when a “progressive winning position” is achieved at a participating gaming device. If the gaming device is a slot machine, a progressive winning position may, for example, correspond to alignment of progressive jackpot reel symbols along a certain payline. Or, the jackpot-triggering event may be a “mystery” award to a player based on a random number generator that is unrelated to the outcome of the basic game. In any these prior art systems, the player is awarded a progressive jackpot amount that may have increased from its base “reset” value due to wagering inputs for players of the wagering game.
The initial amount of each progressive jackpot is a predetermined minimum amount, usually referred to as a “reset” value. The jackpot amount, however, progressively increases as players continue to play the gaming machine without winning the progressive jackpot. Further, when several gaming machines are linked together such that several players at several gaming machines compete for the same jackpot, the jackpot progressively increases at a much faster rate, which leads to further player excitement. Many players are attracted to wagering games that have progressive jackpots that increase at a rapid rate. In existing progressive jackpots, once the progressive jackpot is triggered, the entire known progressive jackpot is awarded to a first player. The jackpot amount is reset to the predetermined minimum amount, which is a lower amount than the higher jackpot amount that was just triggered by the first player. As such, in these existing games, the player typically has the opportunity to win a single progressive jackpot amount (or progressive jackpot amounts if there is more than one progressive jackpot level).
Thus, what is needed is a wagering system that allows players to remain interested in the wagering game by providing a progressive game that may have several different award amounts, rather than a known, incrementable progressive jackpot amount. Further, what is also needed is a progressive game in which the player can easily visualize the incrementing of the progressive jackpot awards by viewing the symbols on the basic game. These needs are satisfied by the present invention, described in more below, in which the progressive jackpot symbols are assigned individual values that are displayed to the player. The individual values of the progressive jackpot symbols that trigger the award are summed to determine the overall progressive jackpot award value. Because the individual award amounts corresponding to the progressive symbols may be different and different combinations of progressive symbols may trigger a win of the progressive, there are numerous possible amounts for the progressive awards.